Hickey ushers in new era at UTSA

Published 12:00 am, Sunday, December 26, 2010

UTSA athletic director Lynn Hickey has spent much of the year focused on starting a football team but hasn’t let that get in the way of success for the other programs.

UTSA athletic director Lynn Hickey has spent much of the year focused on starting a football team but hasn’t let that get in the way of success for the other programs.

Photo: EDWARD A. ORNELAS/eaornelas@express-news.net

Hickey ushers in new era at UTSA

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

Position: UTSA athletic director

Age: 59

2010 accomplishments: Time will tell if Hickey's decision to fast track her fledgling football program's pursuit of FBS membership was the correct one. But there can be no disputing the amount of daring and effort — as well as some good timing — it took to navigate the many obstacles that arose, from initially wanting to go independent, then having that course blocked by the Southland Conference, and finally with an invitation to join the Western Athletic Conference. As if that wasn't enough, the women's soccer and volleyball teams earned NCAA tournament berths, and the men's basketball team is off to a 6-2 start.

“It's been really, really cool,” Hickey said.

Did you know? Hickey's great-great-great grandfather was Richard Fields, chief of the Texas Cherokees and interpreter for Sam Houston. At one point, Hickey's family, hailing from English, French and Cherokee roots, owned all of East Texas. She also averaged 40 points per game in basketball as a senior in high school — which, as she is fond of pointing out, is higher than that of UTSA men's basketball coach Brooks Thompson, a former NBA player.

Related Stories

It has been very fast, very challenging. But it's also been very rewarding.

In a lot of ways, we've been really blessed with the way everything has fallen into place. But even though it's gone fast, people forget we started working on this back in 2002. So it seems like things have solidified, but we've tried to do a good job planning and building gradually up to this opportunity.

There are so many things we don't have any control over. So what was very important was that we worked very, very hard to get a good foundation in place, so if an opportunity came, we could take advantage. It's been a lot of work, but it's also been a lot of fun.

What was the toughest moment?

I think probably ... in Galveston, that first week in June (for the Southland presidents' meeting). That hit pretty hard.

I was not prepared for that decision (to require full conference membership, which negated UTSA's hope to go independent in football while remaining in all other sports until an FBS invitation materialized), and that really appeared to throw up a major obstacle for how we wanted to move the program forward.

It might sound silly, but in some ways it might have been a blessing, because it kicked us out of the nest a little bit and helped us continue to be real aggressive.

With the movement around the country, it probably ended up being an advantage. Though at the time, it took my breath away a little bit.

Have you allowed yourself to look ahead to the first football game, on Sept. 3 of next year?

Right now, what we're focusing on, we have a tremendous amount of work in front of us to make this transition, to get the football team ready for that first game.

I hope everyone doesn't forget we have 16 other teams that need resources and attention to continue to improve. But I think it's going to be a great moment when the doors open at the (Alamodome) on Sept. 3.

When those kids run through the tunnel for the first time, the band is playing and the cheerleaders are out there, that's going to be a great moment in history, not just for UTSA, but for the city of San Antonio.

We know we have a great responsibility to make that a great event and an environment that people can be proud of being part of that day.